The Conflict Center doesn’t sugarcoat the daily challenges its clients face. The northwest Denver organization has a succinct motto: “Conflict Is Inevitable, Violence Is Not.”

Jerry Hartman isn’t one to mince words either.

“I don’t know about you, but I have a point when I can’t turn around. I become forceful, very forceful,” said Hartman, a participant in of the center’s workshops on anger management. “They taught me how to deal with that.”

Not that Hartman was looking for a lesson in recognizing his boiling point. Like a number of adults who attend the center’s six-week workshop “Transforming Anger and Conflict Into Your Allies,” he was resistant to taking the class.

Hartman’s path was a little different from the court-ordered route some of his classmates followed.

Hartman was doing janitorial work for the center at the time. The Conflict Center — a past recipient of funding through Denver Post Charities Season to Share — strongly encourages its employees and volunteers to take one of its courses in order to get a feel for the work of the 26-year-old organization.

“I was really reluctant. I just wanted to work, get the job done and move on,” Hartman recalled. “When I first took the class, I was like, ‘Nah, man.’ But after a while, I’d be in public and incidents would happen that we talked about in class. I was like, ‘Whoa.’ “

In addition to the anger-management course, the Conflict Center offers a relationship workshop for adults and an eight-week course for young people called “Emotional Intelligence & Critical Decision Making.” It also offers mediation services and provides conflict training to businesses and organizations.

Most of the outreach the Conflict Center undertakes is with young people. Executive director Ron Ludwig estimates 90 percent of the center’s clients are kids. But, he added, “We also recognize that lots of times, when you’re serving kids you need to serve their families to give them skills.”

Workshops use role-playing to help negotiate tensions. They emphasize practical skills.

“A lot of things they were talking about, I use today,” said Hartman, who admitted there was a time when he “used to go to jail at least three or four times a year, for assault, for theft, for drugs.”

He’s the father of a 19-month-old son, whom he and his wife adopted.

“The class provided a more a basic understanding of you, and the things you come in contact with every day,” said Hartman, who now works at Denver International Airport conducting construction-site traffic. “They show you how to deal with each situation. To find your boiling point and know what to do, know how to deal with it ”

Hartman, who doesn’t look his 67 years, has a warm demeanor, which he said was first burnished when he found Jesus in 1995. Still, the Grace and Truth Full Gospel Pentecostal Church deacon likes to bear witness to the work of the Conflict Center too.

“I took what I got from the church, from being saved,” he said. “When I went to the Conflict Center that’s when I started shining it up.”

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